The
many discontinuities from year to year suggest that listing in this
directory was by subscription; don't assume that a business' absence
from this listing is necessarily evidence of its absence from Medford.

MEDFORD. Population
2,500. Jackson
County. Settled in 1884, incorporated as a city in [1885], in the Rogue
River Valley on
Bear Creek and the Southern Pacific railway, 328 miles south of
Portland, 443 north of San Francisco,
and 5 east of Jacksonville, the county seat. Contains Christian,
Baptist, Episcopal,
Lutheran, Methodist Episcopal and Methodist Episcopal South,
Presbyterian and Catholic churches, public school, opera house seating
600, water works, fire department, electric light plant, 3
newspapers--Medford Mail (Republican,
weekly), Southern Oregonian
(Independent,
semi-weekly), Medford
Tribune (daily
and weekly), 3 banks--the Medford National, Jackson County and First
National Bank--the Medford flour mill, capacity 100 barrels; the Hotel
Nash is a favorite with the commercial travel. The Iowa Lumber Co. have
their mills and factories here, and
give employment to a large number of men. Annual rainfall 20 to 30
inches. The land is
fertile, suited to grain and fruit. Shipments, flour, fruit and
livestock. Quartz and placer mining is extensively carried on.
Telegraph Postal and Western Union. Express Wells Fargo Co. Telephone
connections. Mail
daily. Alonzo M. Woodford, postmaster.